Shopping cart seat covers or liners and various other child protective devices have been developed for the seats of shopping carts. The primary function of these seat covers is to provide personal hygiene protection and added safety for a child. Numerous individuals as well as other children contact shopping cart seats and the cart handle. The seats are often soiled and can be contaminated with food as well as viruses or the bacteria associated with colds, flu or other casually transmitted diseases. The shopping cart seat cover can act as a barrier to prevent contact of the child to these contaminations. In addition these seat covers improve the comfort level of the child while sitting on the hard plastic or rigid wire components of a shopping cart seat and provide added safety, having a built in seatbelt thus eliminating the hazard posed by missing or damaged seat belts on the cart itself.
Examples of such shopping cart seat covers can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,655,502 by Houllis titled “Multi-Adjustable Cushion For A Shopping Cart,” U.S. Pat. No. 4,666,207 by Quartano titled “Child Shopping Cart Cushion,” and U.S. Pat. No. 5,330,250 by Reyes titled “Liner For A Shopping Cart Child Seat.”
Some shopping seat covers have also been developed which allow child or infant items such as bottles, rattles, or toys to be detachably connected to the seat liner or a handle of the shopping cart. Examples of such seat covers can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,805,937 by Boucher et al. titled “Handler Cover And Seat Cover For Shopping Cart” and U.S. Pat. No. 5,238,293 by Gibson titled “Shopping Cart Seat Cover.”
Other shopping cart seat covers have been proposed that convert between being a diaper bag and a shopping cart seat liner. An example of those can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,829,835 to Rogers.
While personal hygiene improvements have occurred over the years due to the introduction of these shopping cart seat covers, they are often bulky and difficult to carry when a parent or guardian has the responsibility for also carrying or managing a small child or infant. They add to the multiplicity of child related items which a parent or guardian carries during shopping trips or the like. The complexity and awkwardness of using these conventional seat covers and their bulkiness makes these shopping cart seat covers difficult and impractical for everyday usage during shopping trips by parents or guardians of small children and creates safety hazards when trying to handle them while dealing with an active child.
The parent or guardian needs a shopping cart seat liner that provides comfort and protection to the child but can be also be compactly stored and carried when not in use and can easily be un-folded for use in a shopping cart and easily re-folded into a small and practical device that can be used when not being used as a shopping cart cover.